Dawn had barely brushed the rooftops of Potsdam when Karl stepped out onto the front steps of his mansion.
It was far too grand for him.
Three floors.
A private garden.
Polished stone pillars.
Two carved stone lions flanking the door like something out of a fairy tale.
Officially, he had bought it with his share of the profits from the Oskar Industrial Group.
Unofficially, it had been Oskar who pushed him into it, dragging him to the estate agent, waving away Karl's protests about cost, and signing every last paper with frightening enthusiasm.
"For your peace, freedom, justice, and security, my little man,"
Oskar had said with a mysterious grin, as if quoting something only he understood.
Karl still had no idea what that meant. But he knew what had been behind it, or well he suspected it was also because Oskar truly cared for him and wished for him to live a good life, but a life not too far away from Oskar's own home in the palace that is.
Karl pulled his coat tighter and shivered.
Not from the cold.
From the knowledge that he was about to leave behind his pregnant wife, his best friend…
…and a Germany that suddenly felt like it was changing faster than anyone could control.
Behind him, the front door opened again, and Heddy hurried out, barefoot on the marble floor, still in her nightgown and wrapped in a shawl.
She was glowing, round with child — five months along now — and deeply, visibly worried as she fell to her knees to meet him properly face to face.
"Karl… are you sure?" she whispered, voice tight. "Do you really have to go yourself? You could send someone else. You could send ten someone elses. You're important now. You're—"
"My little wife," Karl murmured, taking her cheeks in both hands, "I am the only one who can convince two American geniuses to cross an ocean and join the madness that is our prince, since my letter's and contacts have failed to do this."
Heddy's eyes shimmered.
"You promise you'll come back?"
It was the third time she asked.
"I promise I'll come back," Karl repeated softly.
It was the third time he said it.
Only then did she release his coat, resting one hand over her belly as if to shield their child from all the evils beyond their mansion's dark metallic gates.
Karl pressed a kiss to her forehead, turned, and strode down the stairs toward the waiting car.
The motorcar gleamed black beneath the street lamp right outside the gates. It was a custom-built Mercedes, reinforced frame, powerful engine, leather interior.
A gift from Wilhelm II himself, with a note that read:
> "For the man who keeps my son alive and his Industrial Group running."
A uniformed chauffeur — another of the Kaiser's gifts — held the door open.
Next to the car waited three Eternal Guards:
Gunther the giant, flanked by his two comrades, all disguised as ordinary working men in fisherman coats and wool caps. Oskar had personally requested they go with him.
"Don't worry about safety, they will keep you safe, and possibly help you convince those brothers to join us," he had said, "you are my right hand man I trust you to do this."
Karl, meanwhile, wore the closest thing he could call a disguise:
– a fake nose slightly crooked
– thick spectacles
– a black moustache glued on unevenly
– a hat one size too large
– and a scarf wrapped up to his eyes
Gunther had taken one look and nearly choked trying not to laugh.
"You look," he managed between snorts, "like a French detective drawn by a drunk artist who's never seen France."
Karl sniffed indignantly.
"Oskar suggested it. Therefore, it is genius."
Gunther coughed in a way that sounded exactly like suppressed laughter.
In Karl's briefcase sat money, documents, a meticulously folded parachute, and — God help him — a prototype of Oskar's "Batsuit," which Karl still mistakenly believed would turn him invisible.
"Ready, Herr Karl?" the driver asked.
"Ready," Karl lied.
He slid into the car, the Eternal Guards following in formation, and the chauffeur eased them away from the mansion toward the main road.
The streets of Potsdam were quiet at this hour… almost peaceful.
Karl allowed himself one moment of calm.
One moment of breathing —
knowing he was leaving his pregnant wife,
his unconscious best friend,
and a nation trembling on the edge of something new and frightening.
I should send someone else, he thought.
I should stay. Oskar needs me.
But another voice answered him — clearer, steadier, almost sounding like Oskar himself:
No. Oskar needs those Wright brothers before our enemies charm or steal them away.
And besides… seeing the United States might even be exciting. Inspiring, even.
Karl lowered his hat over his eyes, exhaled a long sigh, and decided to sleep.
Hamburg was far, and the road would be long.
The car rolled peacefully toward Berlin.
At a Pump Station it refueled, the Eternal Guards took the chance to stretch their legs, and then the motorcar hummed onward toward Hamburg — toward the Atlantic.
For a while, the ride was quiet and calm.
Karl snored softly in the back seat.
Gunther and the other guards practiced their English in low, earnest tones:
"Hello, sir."
"No, Gunther — sir, not zur."
"I am very fisherman."
"That's not—oh never mind."
Then the sun began to rise.
And the peace shattered.
Smoke rose above the horizon.
Dark plumes against the pink morning sky.
As they approached the outskirts of Hamburg, Karl jerked awake.
He leaned forward, pressing his face to the cold glass.
His stomach dropped.
Germany — the Germany Oskar had been trying so hard to build —
was beginning to tear at the edges.
Crowds clogged the streets near the stations and docks:
Some cried.
Some shouted.
Some dragged trunks and suitcases.
Some carried only a sack and a child.
Women with babies on their hips.
Old men bent under the weight of everything they owned.
Young men with grim faces, walking like they were heading to an execution.
At first Karl thought: Emigration, like always.
Germany had been bleeding people to America for decades.
Then he saw the other signs.
A synagogue still smoking, its roof collapsed inward, black beams jutting like broken ribs. Firemen sprayed the ruins while a knot of onlookers watched in heavy silence.
Shop windows lay shattered, glass like ice across the cobblestones. Chalk messages scrawled on doors:
> GEHT! – GO!
DIESES LAND IST NICHT FÜR EUCH! – THIS LAND IS NOT FOR YOU!
Gunther leaned forward, jaw tight.
"…It's already begun," he muttered.
Karl nodded, throat dry.
The Kaiser's emergency speech and the new law had only been printed yesterday. It wasn't supposed to come into full force until the New Year.
But people didn't wait for dates on paper.
The resentment had been there for years—decades even— simmering under everything:
Old wars and lost territories.
Competing nationalisms.
Languages people didn't share.
Religious grudges.
Economic jealousy.
Newspapers and rumours.
Communities that lived side by side but never truly with each other.
All it needed was a spark.
The assassination attempt on Oskar had lit the fuse.
If someone could strike at the Iron Prince in the park…
—then to many Germans, the enemy was no longer a vague "foreign threat."
It was inside the country.
The car slowed as they passed a street where Landwehr soldiers moved from house to house, checking papers. A police squad marched by carrying a crate of confiscated pamphlets, foreign flags, and a half-burned Torah scroll.
Karl felt a sharp, sour pity twist in his chest.
For a moment he thought of all the writings he'd read about odd customs and old frictions—how communities had stopped understanding each other long ago. How fear and disgust could grow from that. He thought of Oskar and himself: a giant prince and a dwarf, different as could be, yet somehow best friends.
"If we can get along," he whispered, "why can't anyone else?"
Gunther answered quietly, eyes still on the street:
"What good would telling His Highness do now, Herr Karl? Even he cannot stop this. The law is written. The people have decided what they want it to mean."
Karl didn't like that.
But he couldn't say Gunther was wrong.
By the time the motorcar reached the docks, the chaos had organized itself into something like German order.
Long lines snaked before the steamship ticket offices. Emigrants argued with clerks, clutched passports, counted coins again and again.
Steamship funnels belched smoke as crews loaded baggage and cattle and people. HAPAG and North German Lloyd were doing very good business sending thousands across the ocean.
Karl saw them all:
A Polish family with three children, parents looking scared and defiant at once.
Danish-speaking fishermen from Schleswig, caps clutched in calloused hands.
A Jewish tailor holding a Torah to his chest so tightly his knuckles were white.
Dockworkers shouted.
Crates thudded.
Gulls screamed overhead.
Ship whistles wailed.
And everywhere, raw emotion:
Anger at being pushed out.
Fear of what staying might mean.
Hope for America.
Hatred for Germany.
Hatred for "those people."
Relief. Grief. Confusion.
From the crowd on the quay, voices followed the departing migrants:
"TRAITORS!"
"DON'T COME BACK!"
"GOOD LUCK IN AMERICA—YOU'LL NEED IT!"
And then, a woman yelled with cracked enthusiasm:
"THANK THE IRON PRINCE FOR CLEANING OUR COUNTRY!"
Karl flinched.
He leaned closer to Gunther and muttered:
"Do they not realise that this isn't what Oskar wanted. Not like this."
Gunther put a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"The Prince throws stones into rivers," he said softly. "He cannot control every ripple. And look at it this way—the Americas are vast. These people will find space to breathe. They can build their own Danish villages, Polish towns, Jewish quarters… even those gypsies, might find peace at last. Here, land is limited. There, they have plenty of room."
Karl hated how reasonable that sounded.
He also knew many of these people had been living in cramped apartments under bad conditions even before this. Before Oskar began improving Germany many had been thinking of leaving, they just needed a little push, some encouragement and now they had gotten it. Part of him hoped Gunther was right—that one day, some of them would look back and say: leaving had been the better path.
Their ship, the SS Friedrich der Große, loomed over the pier like a floating city—black hull, white superstructure, rows of glittering portholes.
Third-class passengers swarmed the lower gangplanks, herded in groups. Stewards checked tickets, barked instructions. Cargo cranes swung overhead.
Karl adjusted his fake moustache, which had started to peel from nervous sweat.
Gunther eyed him sideways.
"Sir, you absolutely look like a foreign spy."
"Good," Karl whispered back. "Maybe the Wright brothers will think I'm French. They like the French."
They did not, in fact, particularly like the French.
But Karl believed it with his whole heart.
At the base of the gangplank, a dockworker gave them a once-over: small man in ridiculous disguise; three tall "fishermen" who walked like soldiers; a bulging briefcase.
"…Business or pleasure?" he asked.
Karl squared his shoulders.
"Saving the world," he said.
Gunther nearly choked trying to swallow a laugh.
They walked up the gangplank.
Behind them, Hamburg roared and howled:
Far away some shops and homes burned.
Families shouted farewells from the ship, to the nation they were leaving behind to begin a new chapter in their lives.
Some children were crying.
Whistles blowing.
People praying for deliverance.
The steady churn of an Empire entering a new phase.
At the rail, Karl turned for one last look.
Lines at the dock still stretched long. People still argued and prayed and cursed. Somewhere in the city, newspapers still inked Oskar's name in huge letters.
"Let's hope," Karl murmured, "that these people find better lives… and that Germany doesn't lose itself in the process."
Gunther nodded slowly.
The ship's horn bellowed.
Lines were cast off. Water churned white. The docks began to drift away.
And so Karl Bergmann—dwarf, businessman, bat-suit believer—escorted by three Eternal Guards and carrying the future of German aviation in a briefcase, set off across the Atlantic in search of two stubborn bicycle makers in America.
While Karl travelled somewhere on the Atlantic with three Eternal Guards and a suitcase full of money and batsuit cloth, Oskar lay in his hospital bed—
Still bandaged.
Still sore.
Very much alive.
And, of course, already making new deals for future technologies.
Across from him sat a thin man in his fifties with tired but sharp eyes and the posture of an engineer who had spent a lifetime bending wood and metal to his will: Gustav Lilienthal.
"Mister Lilienthal, I'm sorry you have to see me like this," Oskar said, gesturing at his bandaged chest. "My current condition is… not ideal for meetings."
Gustav immediately shook his head, almost flustered.
"No, Your Highness," he said quickly. "I am the one who should apologise for disturbing your recovery. You have gone through… far too much already. To be summoned here at all is a greater honour than I imagined. You are, after all, the talk of Germany—and not only Germany. In the scientific world, your name is on everyone's lips."
He glanced at Oskar's size, at the way the hospital bed seemed almost too small for him, and still looked faintly disbelieving that this was the same prince whose inventions were changing the country.
After a few polite exchanges, Oskar steered the conversation to the point.
"Mr Lilienthal," he said more softly, "I've followed your work—and your late brother's—for a long time. Otto Lilienthal is someone I deeply respect. He gave his life chasing the dream of human flight."
Gustav's gaze dropped at once. That old wound had never really healed.
"If my brother could hear you, Your Highness," he murmured, "it would please him greatly."
Oskar nodded.
"Several years ago, the Wright brothers in the United States built the first heavier‑than‑air flying machine," he continued. "What do you think of their work?"
Gustav folded his hands, thinking.
"The Wrights accomplished what many said was impossible," he said. "Their early flights were short, yes, but their machines improve every year—longer endurance, better control. If they continue like this, they'll leave the rest of us behind."
Oskar smiled faintly.
"It's because of pioneers like your brother that any of this is possible at all," he said. "The whole world stands on the shoulders of men who fell from the sky."
Gustav's mouth twitched—half grief, half pride.
Oskar's tone shifted.
"Tell me, Mister Lilienthal," he asked, "have you considered the military uses of aircraft?"
Gustav blinked.
"Military?" he repeated slowly. "Your Highness… at present, our machines barely stay aloft. Their time in the air is brief, their altitude low, their speed modest. Under such conditions, to speak of war applications feels… premature. Unless you already see a solution where I only see problems?"
Oskar's eyes sharpened.
"Yes," he said simply. "I do."
He pushed himself up a little, ignoring the pull in his stitches.
"Today," he said, "aircraft are fragile toys. Gliders with dreams. But that will not last. Picture this, Mister Lilienthal: in the past, knights on horseback charged with lances. In the wars to come, our knights will ride machines, and their lances will be bullets and bombs."
Gustav swallowed.
"In the future, the sky will be a battlefield," Oskar went on quietly. "Aircraft will carry explosives over enemy lines. They'll hit trenches, rail yards, ports, supply depots. Fighter planes will clash above the clouds like armoured riders, duelling in three dimensions. And the men who fly them will be celebrated like knights once were—because they'll decide battles."
He let that hang in the air.
"If Germany does not move now," he said at last, "someone else will. And then one day we will look up and see foreign flags flying over our cities."
Silence stretched. In that silence, the idea stopped being fantasy and began to feel like a blueprint.
Slowly, Gustav nodded.
"Your Highness," he said, "I admit I had not thought so far ahead. But if you say this is where the future lies, then—as a German—I cannot ignore it. Our engineers are not weaker than the Wrights. With enough support, catching up… perhaps even surpassing them… is possible."
"That," Oskar said, "is exactly what I wanted to hear."
He reached to the bedside table and slid a folder of neatly stacked sketches and notes toward him.
"Mister Lilienthal," he said, "if you have no objection, I intend to support your work completely from this point on. Funding, equipment, workshops, test fields—whatever you need, I'll provide. I'll also give you my outlines for future aircraft: control systems, general layouts, what these machines need to do on the battlefield."
Gustav looked at the folder as if it were a holy relic.
"In return," Oskar went on, "your research will follow my strategic direction. Your loyalty will be to me and to Germany—and everything you and your team discover stays secret. You experiment and build; I point to where we must go. That is my offer."
Gustav hesitated only a heartbeat.
He knew exactly what this meant.
His work would no longer be guided solely by curiosity; it would serve the Empire's defence. His gliders would become weapons.
But he also knew his reality:
Money was scarce.
Engines were scarce.
Materials were scarce.
Without a powerful patron, their workshop might slowly fade into a footnote.
With one…
With this one…
He straightened.
"Your Highness," he said gravely, "I accept. My team and I will lend our strength to the prosperity—and protection—of Germany."
Oskar's smile broadened.
"Good," he said. "Then let's make the future take off together."
They shook hands—prince and engineer.
"Now," Oskar continued, "you know as well as I do that the heart of an aircraft is its engine. Without enough power, it's just a glider that thinks too highly of itself. The German Engine Company has already begun adapting automobile engines for flight. They're making progress. From now on, they'll supply engines under your direction."
Gustav brightened at once.
"If we can rely on a steady supply of suitable powerplants," he said, "our work will advance far more quickly. Too often we've had to twist our designs around whatever engine happened to be available."
"Then let's stop twisting," Oskar said. "Within three years, I want you to produce a machine that can:
Fly at least 100 kilometres per hour,
Climb above 2,000 metres,
Carry one pilot and a machine gun,
And fly at least 200 kilometres without refuelling."
Gustav's eyes widened.
"That is…" he exhaled, "…ambitious, Your Highness. But with proper funding, material and engines—"
He paused.
"—it is not impossible."
"That's all I needed," Oskar said. "We don't have time to be timid. And here—these are my notes on modern aircraft design. Think of them as a head start."
He tapped the folder.
Gustav took it with both hands, as carefully as if it were made of glass.
"Then we'll begin at once," he said quietly. "For my brother's sake. And for Germany's."
When Gustav finally left, Oskar sank back into the pillows, exhaustion washing over him.
But his mind didn't slow.
With Germany's engineers, with Gustav at the helm, with engines he could control… we can be at the forefront, he thought. Not chasing. Leading.
In another history, German pilots had flown brave and died often—sometimes with excellent machines, sometimes in outdated ones thrown against better foes. Oskar had read those numbers. He knew their names.
This time, he wanted German pilots in the best aircraft in the sky, not "good enough" compromises signed off by committees.
His thoughts turned to the Wright brothers.
They were pioneers of enormous importance. Their work had moved the entire world forward. If Karl could bring them in, Germany's lead would stretch years ahead.
If they refused…
A cold edge slid quietly into his thinking.
If they refuse and lend their genius to a rival instead… then I don't see why they should be allowed to serve at all.
He didn't like the thought.
Two years ago he would have flinched away from it.
But after a night in the park, standing in his own blood with dynamite in his hand, some soft part of him had burned away.
Surviving an assassination had not made him kinder.
It had made him more ruthless.
If breaking one life meant saving thousands—
If scaring one pair of inventors meant protecting Karl, Tanya, Anna, his children, his country—
then for the first time, Oskar was willing to think about it.
In this world, good intentions without teeth ended up in shallow graves.
And Oskar had no intention of going there.